Visceral General Manager Steve Papoutsis has made an interesting clarification regarding Battlefield Hardline’s development.
It turns out Visceral Games was in charge of developing both single player and multiplayer for Battlefield Hardline. Contrary to earlier reports, the game didn’t turn out to be a full collaboration between Visceral and Battlefield’s original developers, DICE.
DICE did help in making Battlefield Hardline as a collaborator, presumably in a supporting role rather than a fully coordinated cooperative effort.
Of course, this now confirms that Battlefield Hardline is the 1st game in the franchise to have a completely different lead developer than DICE. It’s both scary and exciting times for the franchise as a whole.
In the fallout of Battlefield 4 (which really does include ongoing litigation between EA and disgruntled investors), however, giving over development duties to a different studio might not necessarily be the worst decision EA has made to the franchise. On the contrary, keeping DICE’s hands off the franchise this time around is probably the best thing they can do to get over the game, and the studio’s current less-than-stellar reputation.
Battlefield Hardline is coming Q3 2014 to Windows, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.